[bksvol-discuss] Re: question: Re: page breaks
- From: "Mary Otten" <maryotten@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 10:48:29 -0600
I suppose this has been hashed and rehashed while I was off the list. But I
can't let pass a categorical statement like the one Guido made that books with
no page breaks must be rejected as unnavigable. Do I really
need to navigate a novel? I want to read it, not necessarily know what page or
paragraph or whatever I'm on right now. remember that people used talking books
for literally decades and had absolutely no clue where
they were with respect to the printed text, yet they got a whole lot of
enjoyment out of those books and continue to do so to this day, despite the
fact that they don't know what page they're on.
I can certainly take a book that has no page breaks in it and navigate within
it well enough to find my place when I want to pick up where I left off. If I'm
reading with a portable device like the Bookport or courier, the
reading will automatically pick up where I stopped, and I can make bookmarks.
If reading with K1000, I can place some sort of symbol where I stopped and can
search for it when I next open the file, unless, of course,
I've changed the book into a kes in which case, K1k will pick up where I left
off without my having to do anything. If I'm using Word to read, I can make a
book mark or use some symbol that I can come back to. And
that's pretty much all that's wanted when reading for pleasure, which is what
generally happens with contemporary novels. If one wanted to make a case for
rejection of books that have no page breaks when those
books are apt to be used as reference, I could see the point. Although,
frankly, I'd rather see even books of that nature accepted, but with some
notation that let people know that breaks were absent. Then they
could become like the fair rated ones, put on a list and be up for rescan by
willing volunteers.
I think the problem here is that BookShare is attempting to serve clients with
vastly different requirements and tolerance levels. If I'm a student and get a
book without accurate pagination, and I want to use that for
reference, I'm out of luck and have to get that book from some other source.
But if I'm not a student and just want to read, and BookShare has a policy that
says, sorry, no books will be accepted without page breaks,
then they've just deprived me of something that would be perfectly usable for
my purposes and ensured that I have to go forth and scan or do without. I don't
think there is a solution that is going to please everybody,
just as there is no hard and fast line for text quality, below which, all books
must be rejected due to unreadability. I hope, at this Monday meeting, there
will be serious consideration given to a nuanced approach to this
problem, rather than allowing an arbitrary decision that causes automatic
rejection of anything that lacks the page breaks. Do that, and you should also
reject anything that's not excellent text quality as well.
Mary
Other related posts:
